The Best of Whatever—Jedidiah Ayres

My best of 2010 in no particular order:

Noir at the Bar. It was an amazing year for the tawdry little event that I host along with Scott Phillips. We were validated by the participation of Pinckney Benedict, Laura Benedict, Sean Doolittle, Derek Nikitas, Dennis Tafoya, Tim Lane, Matt Kindt and Jonathan Woods. We also got to see the first public readings of Matthew McBride, Chris La Tray, Dan O’Shea and (I think) Cameron Ashley. Don’t have any idea how 2011 could possibly top that.

People I know getting book deals. You guys make me sick. (You can find those guys HERE and HERE)

Great debuts: Jack Clark – Nobody’s Angel, Benjamin Whitmer – Pike, John Rector – The Cold Kiss

Knockout sophomore efforts: Dennis Tafoya – Wolves of Fairmount Park, Roger Smith – Wake Up Dead, Millard Kaufman – Misadventure, John Brandon – Citrus County.

“Discoveries” – Lynn Kostoff, Dave Zeltserman, Larry Brown, Thomas McGuane, Jim Nesbit

Good films from great books – Winter’s Bone, The Killer Inside Me, True Grit (it’s gonna be, I just know it)

Young punk upstarts online – Crimefactory, Muholland Books blog

And in print – Needle, Beat to a Pulp (yeah, in print)

Unconfirmed accounts of people reading my bullshit: William Gay, Chris Offutt, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Duvall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jedidiah Ayres recently made his big screen debut playing the part of Yogi Bear. He loooooooovess pic-i-nic baskets. He blogs at Hardboild Wonderland and B&N's Ransom Notes and his fiction has appeared in more publications than you can shake a dead cat at. (which makes the editors of Crimefactory Magazine green with envy.) He also penned the screenplay for the film Mosquito Kingdom